Will Modi resign after 50 days: Mamata

Calling demonetisation the biggest scam post independence, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday asked if Prime Minister Narendra Modi will resign at the end of 50 days if things do not improve.

Addressing a joint press conference by several opposition parties here, Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress supremo, said demonetisation decision was “illegal” and “unconstitutional” and has set the economy 20 years back.

“Modi, you had asked for 50 days time, people were losing livlihood, dying due to starvation, yet they gave you that time. Now 47 days are over, and only three days left,” said Banerjee referring to Modi’s 50-day deadline nearing its end.

“We will wait for the next three days. But Modi, if things remain unsolved, will you take the responsibility and resign as the Prime Minister of the country,” she asked.

“In the name of demonetisation you have plundered the entire country, over 10 crore people have been rendered unemployed. You have looted money from the poor to give relief to the corporates who have created huge nonperforming assets for the banks.

“GDP has sustained huge losses, the economy has set back by 20 years. This is a mega scam, the biggest scam after independence,” she said adding that the opposition parties will make a common minimum programme over its demonetisation protests.

Accusing Modi of destroying the country’s federal structure, she said that Modi neither took parliament into confidence before taking such a huge decision nor he bothered to make even one line statement in parliament after implementing it.

“This is not just unethical but also illegal and unconstitutional,” said Banerjee.

She also took a jibe over the Modi government’s push for a cashless economy.

“Even as advanced economy like the US has around 40 per cent cash transactions and he (Modi) talk about cashless economy. In the name of cashless economy, Modi government has gone baseless, it has gone faceless,” she quipped.

She also alleged of a “hidden agenda” behind the demonetisation and said the Modi government has become weak.

“If the government is weak, the country becomes weak. Demonetisation has made the whole country unstable. This government must go, otherwise the people will throw it out,” added Banerjee.